Episode 332: Becky Keene

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 0:30

Hello everybody and welcome to another great episode of my EdTech Life. Thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful day and, wherever it is that you're joining us from around the world, thank you, as always, for all of your support. We appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows. Thank you so much for engaging with our content and sharing our content. Thank you so much to all our new listeners as well. We definitely appreciate all of that love. Thank you, thank you, thank you. As you know, we do what we do for you to bring you some amazing conversations and amazing guests and, of course, as always, today is no different, because we have an amazing guest and an author that we're going to be talking about their new book release. So I'm really excited for you to meet Becky Keene. Becky, how are you doing today?

Becky Keene: 1:18

I'm great Thanks, happy Friday. We're recording on Friday.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 1:22

Yeah, we're recording on Friday, so hopefully you guys are having a wonderful, wonderful Friday as well. So thank you, becky, for being here. I'm really excited to connect with you. I know I've been a longtime follower and then scrolling through TikTok to just been loving the content that you're putting out with your TikTok walks and talking about AI and just kind of everything leading up to your book, and you know so many great things there. So I'm really excited for all our listeners current listeners and any new listeners that are joining to get to connect with you. And before we dive into our great conversation, can you give us a little brief introduction and what your context is within the education space?

Becky Keene: 2:02

Oh, absolutely. I am an educator first and foremost. I still identify as an educator, although I'm not in a classroom full-time anymore. I'm not in a district full-time, but that's my heart. I spent 15 years working for a large school system south of Seattle Washington. I've taught everyone from little tiny eight-year-olds through adults, and I've spent the last 10 years specifically focused on adult professional learning in education and primarily ed tech, although my background is in literacy. So it's been a journey.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 2:38

Excellent. So now we're going from that literacy now in the ed tech space to, you know, ai literacy and AI optimism. Like I mentioned to our audience members, we're definitely going to be talking about your new release that we have right here. Ai Optimism a guide to yeah in my hand, and so I'm really excited for us to talk about this. So I want to ask you, becky, just to kind of start off the conversation, is what inspired you to write AI Optimism, and how do you personally define AI Optimism within the education context?

Becky Keene: 3:13

So I have been involved in the AI movement for the last few years, like many of us, and I started to notice some trends that really bothered me. I started to notice some trends that really bothered me. I started to notice that over and over on the social media groups I was a part of, at conferences, I was seeing this trend toward one of two directions. One was oh no, the world is ending right, we're all going to die. The robots are taking over Just a lot of fear-based decision-making. And the other was the oversimplification of this powerful tool we have in front of us. So ed tech companies I'm not going to blame educators for this, but ed tech companies really focusing on these very, very low level uses of AI, you know, just constantly pushing. You can make a worksheet, you can make a quiz, you can make a lesson plan and unfortunately, that is just really not where I hope this tool ends in education. So for me it was kind of more about I felt that I had something to say and I wanted to capture everything that I had, you know, kind of been swirling around in my head as I go on walks and walk my dog and do different things.

Becky Keene: 4:25

I kind of had all these thoughts brewing and I finally thought, okay, I want to write something about that, and I had been familiar with the SAMR model for what? The last 20 years, and so I just started really thinking through. You know, it's okay to use AI at that S substitution level in many cases, and that's where most of us got started using AI, but let's not end the journey there, and so one little fun fact you might be interested in is I wrote the entire book before I had a title, because the title was not the point. The book was the point, and so, after everything was written, my editor and I had some conversations. I had a couple other close friend conversations and said, okay, what do I really want to call this? And that's when we came up with AI Optimism as the level, but it's the content that I wanted to talk about first.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 5:24

Love it and you know there's a lot to unpack there in that statement, because I, along with you, obviously, you know we have, you know, very similar circles and you know, in a lot of the chats and a lot of the social media platforms and so on.

Becky Keene: 5:43

And so you know, and even as part of my dissertation study exactly what you mentioned. Congratulations. By the way, we have to stop for just a minute. You just made a major announcement. I'm so incredibly happy for you. That is obviously a huge journey and congratulations.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 5:57

Thank you. Thank you, becky, I really appreciate it. But it really lines up with what you said because, as as you said, there it was like a split into like two factions. You know the oh no, like you know let's resist this because of you know, just the unknown, the fear of the unknown, losing control. And one of the things that I've learned in doing PD, and especially when you're going to implement something, a lot of the pushback that you get it's not so much that you're adding something to the teacher. A lot of times it's really they feel like they're losing that control and so maybe for a lot of them it was that loss and fear of that control that they once had. And then, of course, you've got the other speedboat side where it's like, hey, let's do this, let's go, but, like you mentioned, at that very low level. And so I really love what you said about the SAMR model, because I know I had talked to you a little bit and asking you about this model and saying, because of the speed and how fast platforms are evolving and moving, is this a great model to still continue using? And I'm thinking, yes, it still is, because it doesn't over.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 7:04

I feel, and this is my opinion and other guests that I have interviewed that were part of the study it was really they're stating the use of AI has been so low level where it's just substitution, and I think you and I can agree that we've seen a lot of technology that has come through and you know, ok, we've got Chromebooks now that has come through. And you know, okay, we've got Chromebooks now. Okay, so now instead of a physical worksheet, now I'm going to give it to you digitally but you're still annotating. So I was like, okay, so we're just substituting the physical for that digital and it just seems like we get stuck on that S and there's some teachers that are great at augmenting so they go to that next step. I recently had a guest on joe christiansen who pretty much mentioned it's like we're pretty much just stay stuck on the s and we never full on go into the r.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 7:54

So I love that you mentioned of your ideas and thinking how the ed tech companies are kind of selling it into. Yes, we're going to help you do your lesson plans faster. We're going to help you answer or create emails faster, do these you know newsletters a lot faster. But how is that going to augment what you're doing? How is it going to modify, how is it going to, you know, reinvent or redefine education? So I want to ask you here I know that you emphasize the Samar model in your book, so tell us a little bit about how you see that we can take this to that really next level, or how ed tech companies can do better in getting us into the AM and the R, the augmentation, modification and redefining the content.

Becky Keene: 8:43

Well, that is totally what the book is about. So the book starts with the AI optimism framework, which is three core principles privacy, praxis and prompting and that really the whole beginning of the book talks about educators taking a step back from you know, oh, I want to try an AI tool. That's my least favorite comment in the whole world. It's like I want to try this tool and as an instructional coach someone with 10, a decade of instructional coaching experience I would always say no, no, you know, we're not here to try a tool. We're here to do best practice and to think about pedagogy first. So the practice part of that conversation is really that Think about what you want your students to achieve. What do you envision this learning experience looking like for your students? Do you envision they all sit down and fill out a worksheet, in which case we can end the conversation? But if you envision them being engaged and empowered and excited about what they're doing, then that's something that we have to set aside and then consider tools that keep student data safe. That's the privacy component. And also, how am I using the tools available to really prompt richly? And we see a lot of these. I call them easy button tools that are helpful to get started, absolutely, but they shouldn't be where we end with AI, because all they're doing is churning out predictive, pattern-based you know very didactic content in many cases when we could be using our prompting skills to do more.

Becky Keene: 10:22

So it's starting with those three core principles in mind and then assessing and I have a wheel framework and there are six categories around the edge of the wheel and then assessing what do we want to do, and it's probably one of those six categories.

Becky Keene: 10:37

I'm trying to design something, or create something, or support my learners, or analyze data, right.

Becky Keene: 10:43

So it's thinking about the task next and then having a little self-check on how much do I want to invite AI to be my assistant for this task, for my pedagogical purpose. So AI Optimism is this decision-making process that starts with what I want to achieve, in the middle is what I'm trying to do, and at the end is the tool that's going to support me and my students the best. And so, to answer your question, with the SAMR model in mind, I then have a choice Do I want to use a tool that meets my needs, that sits at a substitution level, or do I want to use that incremental innovation process to move forward into a MRR, and that might change what my entire assessment looks like. That's the point of the R right Redefinition things that weren't previously possible, but it might also just be some small tweaks along the way that help me build more student voice, more engagement, more autonomy, more productivity, more creativity, more students as creators. You know whatever I'm trying to achieve, so for me it's about that decision along the way.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 11:57

Excellent. I really love that, you know, and I think that's something that a lot of teachers do have in mind. But I think sometimes it's just the excitement of the tool and working as a digital learning coordinator for many years is we bring a platform in and then all of a sudden, the hype is gone. But then what I notice is they never, or we never, really go in a lot deeper than that superficial that got them all excited and it's like, well, ok, we already used it, like OK, like that the glitz and the glamour and the shine is gone. And now it's like, hey, well, I want to use that app because it just has like one additional component to it. But wait a minute. I mean, this does the exact same thing, but have we even gone deeper into it?

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 12:46

And I think that we've gotten into that trend where we just hop from app to app to app to app and we really never dive in deep. And so I love what you mentioned, too, about you know it's okay to slow down, but see where it is that you want to take your students and see how you may get them there in a balanced approach with you know, even no tech, little tech, to that final product or that tech platform that's really going to help you modify and redefine and do something that is that was once inconceivable. You know to do that, you know, and I know they mentioned that in the Samar model. So I think that's something that, as educators, we really need to just kind of slow down and say it's okay, like let's look at the goals first. And like they always say, you know, it's like a task before apps, so let's see what is the task, what is that final outcome, what's the process and what is the final product. What's the process and what is the final product and what's the best tool to get us there.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 13:47

So I really like that, and so I want to kind of talk a little bit and continue that conversation, because in the redefinition chapter you talk about AI enabling tasks that were once inconceivable, things that we didn't think about first, you know, as opposed to just substituting conceivable things that we didn't think about first, you know, as opposed to just substituting. But how else might we take that app to that next level to really enhance the learning experience? So how do you balance the excitement of doing the redefinition and doing something inconceivable with the excitement and the possibilities of students, you know, doing something that they never thought they could, but also balance that with the over-reliance of, maybe, a particular tool for the problem-solving aspect of it.

Becky Keene: 14:36

Right. So that really comes down to the question that I talk about in the very beginning of the book, which is helping students understand how to answer the question does this use of AI limit my learning? And I know it probably seems really like you know, pie in the sky, like there's no way our kids are actually going to do this. But I think these red light, green light models that we've adapted to the use of AI, where we're kind of telling the students, okay, you can use it, for you know this purpose for this assignment, but you can't use it for this purpose, for this assignment I feel like at some point we have to start helping them make critical thinking decisions about the way I'm trying to use AI right now.

Becky Keene: 15:25

Is that limiting me or supporting me? Is it helping me design something that would be previously impossible? Because maybe I don't know how to code and so I'm not going to learn that for this assignment, but I'm super excited to create a website without having to learn coding. Or is the point of the assignment to learn coding? And now I'm skipping past all of that really important knowledge that I'm going to need for my career, my goals, my passions, my hobbies. So I feel like helping students understand that question does this use of AI limit? My learning is going to set them up for success beyond the walls of a classroom, where they have a poster on the wall telling them exactly how and when they're supposed to be using.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 16:54

Excellent, I love that and you know that's such an important question and I think oftentimes we don't give our students enough credit as educators and immediately you know a lot of the reactions from November 2022, and even still to this day it's like, oh, they're just going to cheat, they're just going to go ahead and do this, and so on and so forth, and you know, but that's our assumption.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 17:15

You know, yes, there will be some students and, just like we know, there's always, you know, that handful of students that will try and do as little as possible to just get what we need.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 17:26

But it's because it's like, hey, what is it that we need to get an A, you know, and they're just going to give you the minimum, maybe even just a C, because it's like they're not as engaged, they're not, you know, really just getting that attention that they need to enhance that learning experience.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 17:43

So I really like that you talk about that and that we can possibly now, you know, with the information that is out there, what can we do better to help our students? And I know that that starts with the teachers first. So, becky, in your experience, since I know that you do a lot of PD and you're, you know, pretty much everywhere nationwide, doing a lot of trainings and you're, you know, pretty much everywhere nationwide doing a lot of trainings for teachers. What are some? Maybe, if you can give us two tips for anybody in a leadership role in a school that provides PD, what can we do to help our teachers kind of maybe not think just that like plagiarism, the eminent, like just the negative side, and maybe reframe their thinking to seeing more of that potential and then being able to translate that to students.

Becky Keene: 18:33

That's what AI Optimist is all about. Right Is acknowledging the challenges and then still be willing to press forward. So two tips. One tip is I always talk for over 20 years I've been talking about incremental innovation, disruptive innovation.

Becky Keene: 18:53

It sounds great in a business model but it's not sticky and it makes it drives a lot of fear. It feels like a push in rather than this. You know, organic role in this, together mentality. So I don't love when school systems come in and they're like you know, rip the bandaid off, we're all doing this thing, we're going to provide a bunch of PD, it's going to change everything Like. No one likes that and it's generally not very effective. I've seen those things come and go over time.

Becky Keene: 19:23

So I really, really recommend that school leaders and instructional coaches suggest that incremental innovation where we're going to honor where people are now, because the reality is most of our educators nationwide in the United States are doing great work and they're doing the best they can, and so you know we don't have a lot of people out there just phoning in, so honor that and then talk to them about that.

Becky Keene: 19:50

This is part two solving their problems, because every educator has things they would love to fix right Parent communication or student engagement or the workload of scoring, you know, ap and IB sample tests Like there's something that they're looking to achieve that is going to improve their life and therefore the lives of their students, because they've now freed up some cognitive space to do more what they love, right, and so being in that problem solver mindset again, instead of recommending an app like hey, you know, we're all going to use fill the blank, I don't want to like throw an app under the bus, but a lot of times those implementations don't fit the needs of all of our educators and all of our classrooms. So rather, approaching it with a problem solving mindset of what do you want to achieve and how can I support you getting there and then going on that journey to figure out what's the best fit, I think is absolutely a more sticky approach that's going to honor the expertise in the room and deliver something that actually shows.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 20:59

Excellent. I really love that. I recently had a conversation with Kyler Cheatham, who is somebody else that I found on TikTok and she works with organizations, but she also works with school districts and she really just echoes everything that you just said right now. It was just, you know, being she mentioned making sure that everybody that needs to be in the room is in the room, went to and stating that if 50% of your room is not filled with end users, then you need to kind of, you know, make that happen, to make sure that there is that buy-in, and understanding that it's not, like you mentioned, trying to put a band-aid, maybe even over a band-aid, you know, and then over another band-aid, and so on. So it's just to making sure that you're finding those solutions and being very active in the problem-solving process, and I think that that is something that is wonderful that at the very top, you know, for superintendents, ctos, curriculum directors, they all need to be in that room, because oftentimes those decisions are left to one person and they're based on maybe one teacher who came back from a conference who's very excited and says I need you to open this up or I need you to purchase this, but, like you mentioned understanding that that tool may not be for everybody and it may not be for every teacher or maybe even every learner. So, going back to, let's look at the root of the problem. What is it that we're trying to solve and then make the best decision there for the whole body there in your district. So I really like that a lot. That's just some really great tips and obviously the experience that you have in speaking in so many places, even from k-12 to higher ed, that definitely I love that.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 22:42

So again, guys, the book is AI Optimism. Make sure that you check that out. But, becky, as we continue our conversation, I know recently I saw a post. I believe you were in UT Austin.

Becky Keene: 22:54

I believe Were you working- Yesterday got a little bit midnight, okay it was yesterday.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 22:59

So is that? Were you working with higher ed there?

Becky Keene: 23:02

Yes, we've been working. So the company I work for, i2e, we've been supporting several higher ed institutions. We've spent a lot of time at the University of Texas, both at Austin and SISTEM, so Dallas, houston and so on supporting their AI implementation. So it's interesting because working with higher education, we're not really working with faculty, we're working with operations, business operations, most of the time right now, because we're working with people who are like this is going to save me hours a day on my job, you know those automations, and so it's not so much about instruction and that's been actually really fun, a good growing experience for me.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 23:46

Excellent. Well, and that's great that I asked that. I really thought it was, you know, with higher ed faculty, but now that you mentioned this, that it's more of the operations, you know, I think like K-12 and higher ed, we look at things obviously in that through that education lens, but then you also see on the outside. Now you know that productivity and you're working with operations and so on. So I want to ask you you know what? What are some of the things that you get? Let's say, a little bit of fight back, or you know just a little bit, uh okay, on the education side, what do they kind of like fight back on, and in the operation side, what do they kind of like fight back on? And in the operation side, what might be some things that they fight back on? Just to kind of get a comparison of the education space and the operations space.

Becky Keene: 24:35

So, educators, I feel like push back a little bit on tools that don't really add value. So, for example, I was walking through a conference you know, you and I both go to the ed tech conferences and one of the vendor booths had a nice big sign advertising that they were so excited about changing, like a YouTube video into a PowerPoint with AI so that you could share that with your students. And I kind of just wanted to be honest, like and that's your use case. So, you know, I just walked through that mentality of wait a minute, we're, we're taking a captioned, dynamic, personalized right, I can pause, I can rewind, I can rewatch instructional piece and we're using the best tools we have on the planet to make it more didactic, more central, focused, less accessible, less engaged.

Becky Keene: 25:35

Like, what are we doing? We're going backwards and I think that educators do notice when a tool comes out and it's like this is the opposite of what we want to be doing in education. So there's that pushback of is your tool actually adding value or are you just trying to get me to use it? You know, I like that skepticism. Part of AI optimism is going here's what's possible.

Becky Keene: 26:00

That's where I want to go Like don't limit me by again these easy button options that are just stuffing me full of more content to push out to my students, and so I love that approach. So we're working Cherie with medical centers, legal teams, real estate. They're handling contracts, they're handling donor information, right, alumni relations. There's highly sensitive information flowing through those AI models, and so for them. Honestly, we cover out of the gate, like in the first five minutes at every session. Here's why this is data secure and here's why that matters for you. And, yes, you can use HIPAA compliant data, or this is HIPAA compliant those types of things, if they're using the right tools, because that's incredibly important and nobody wants their research in a data leak.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 28:02

That's very interesting. And going back to what you said, you know, one of the things that shocked me at ISTE, as I was walking through the conference, is I was approached by an app and you know, kind of like. I was like is this, is this for real? So they kind of talked to me and they said yeah, you know, have you heard of us? And I was like no, like, maybe like on social media. And then so they're really giving me the you know their spiel and everything and they're saying you know this, you know application is for teachers and you know this is what it does. And this is what they said. They're like you see, those apps over there, those apps help the teacher before the lesson there, those apps help the teacher before the lesson. These apps over here help the teacher after the lesson, but we help them during the lesson. And I was like okay, I'm intrigued, my ears perked up yeah yeah, yeah.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 28:52

So I was like, okay, so how does that happen? He's like, well, you download an application and then the teacher puts on their. I guess their expectation was the teacher was going to hang their phone here and was going to record while they teach. And I was like, okay, interesting. And then I said, well, what about? You know, students speaking at that time? You know how is it going to protect their privacy when names are being called out or things of that sort? And the voices and they're like, oh, uh, well, the teacher wears it really close here and so they wouldn't hear, like the student voices because they're supposed to be wearing it close here.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 29:31

And I said, yeah, but they're still mentioning, you know, there's still going to be some, uh, identifiable information bits there. And they're like they kind of just stayed quiet and then after that they're like, well, uh, thank you, and that was it, and I walked out and it was very scary, you know. But, like you mentioned, there are some things where I feel like wait a minute, like we've already done that and we've already done that. And, yes, the optimism is there, becky, but sometimes and I don't know if you feel that way, but I guess maybe the feeling for me was like we could be doing so much more. I guess, maybe the feeling for me was we could be doing so much more but, like you mentioned it, sometimes I feel like are we going backwards?

Becky Keene: 30:06

Right, right, like, did we forget about data privacy when we launched some of these tools? Or did we forget about, like, best practice? Yeah, I totally agree. I'm glad you spoke up and I'm glad that you had that lens of like hang on, really. Yeah, I had a similar conversation with an app, I mean when I was at ASU GSB and and they said, oh, what's the number one concern you hear about when you know, when you're working with educators, and and I said data privacy and and I was talking to like the COO or something, and he said, gosh, you're the first person to say that. And I said who are you talking to?

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 30:50

oh my goodness.

Becky Keene: 30:52

I'm glad that there are people making that no for sure.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 30:56

And and then for me that's the biggest thing too, and but also just the fact that you know you're expecting a, an educator, to hang a phone around them and put it so close right here. So it's just picking up and and I get it, you know it's the voice note thing and then afterwards you, you know it's going to transcribe and maybe give you or offer suggestions at least that's what it was saying, that's what I took from it. But I was like I was like, oh my gosh, like I don't know about that, you know, but we'll see, but anyway. So, becky, just as we kind of round out this conversation and maybe as we start kind of wrapping up, I do want to ask you your thoughts on this, because I know that this is something that always there was a lot of guests and a lot of authors also that came on, and even from both sides is the use of AI. If you are a school that is very well funded, well good for you to provide students the those same similar tools, because I mean the cost of it.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 31:58

You know the talk is it's always going to create more of that divide, not only in the learning aspect, but just obviously in equity access. So can you tell us, in your experience, what might we be able to do? Well, maybe not as educators, but maybe I guess maybe as platforms. What might be some advice for platforms to say, hey, you know what, we see what you're doing, we don't want that divide. What can we do to provide equal access?

Becky Keene: 32:43

I 100% agree with you that I feel AI has created a larger equity gap right now in many scenarios and it's heartbreaking because AI is the one tool recently that could be an equalizer.

Becky Keene: 32:59

So my advice to edtech companies is, and as much as we might hate the freemium model, I think it makes sense to offer a lot of what is student facing.

Becky Keene: 33:11

So like a school AI or a, you know, a chat, gbt, gemini, copilot, whatever the school is using scenario where the kids are engaging. Canva is another example where the kids can engage with AI, offering that free, freely available, right that tells us, and those are safe for education tools that you know, we know have good data privacy agreements. So for the schools to be able to at least have an entry point right, if one teacher or the building itself is like we want to do this, then they can get set up and get started. The premium features I get the people that are running these companies have jobs and they have, you know, they have operating expenses and they have AI costs and so, yes, keep a paid model if the district wants analytics, for example, or, you know, a dashboard or these deep dive tools that give high level oversight into what's happening in the system, but we don't compromise privacy and we don't compromise access. I love that.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 34:18

No, that is wonderful and you know, and the reason that I asked that question and it was one that actually wasn't really planned, but it's this morning again, I woke up to LinkedIn and saw a post that somebody just openly posted that said hey, you know, we wanted to get a quote for this specific platform and they said it was for 150 students and 50 faculty 38,000. I was like 38,000. And so I'm thinking to myself what in all is involved in all of that. It's 200 people using this and it's 38,000. And so my thought process and also just because going by the comments, is it based on, of course, usage? I mean, are you going to get those users that are going in there?

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 35:01

And obviously the price of tokens and as that goes up, you know, obviously platforms need to offset some of those costs, depending on where they are connected to, as far as APIs are concerned and things of that nature. So I mean that, from the very beginning, has been one of my biggest fears, becky, honestly, is that you have these wonderful platforms, that you get a quote and you're like, okay, okay, this might be doable, but then that fear that, based on what may happen, based on what large language models do. And as far as the pricing, all of a sudden, from one year to the next, like I mentioned to you, the recording app that I used to use jumped like double in price, or maybe even two and a half times, and now that district is out and they can no longer use that or, you know, then the company may go out of business because they can't work with that model. So it's definitely very interesting and a lot of things to think about there as far as on the leadership side and making sure that you do what's best. So thank you so much for sharing your tips too as well, because that's definitely something that's very important.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 36:09

So my last question to you, becky it also is like, again, there's always a lot of pushback and you know you've got the teachers that are, you know, on one side of the aisle, the other side of the aisle, and I always, like I said, I always want to bring just the conversation in the middle. Where can we meet? But my question to you is is I know that you advocate for AI as a partner in education and of course, it's not there to replace teachers, obviously, but what about the other side? You know that might say well, you know what this might eventually lead to teacher redundancies. You know, they kind of just feel that way like we're just giving too much to AI. Well, how might you respond to them and just say hey, you know, this is where we're at at now and this is how we can move forward?

Becky Keene: 37:00

I think it's a very real fear. It's happening in certainly all sorts of industries, right where people are realizing oh I can do my job in a way that's either more efficient or more cost effective. We see it in radiology and art, there's all these field, coding, there's all these fields. Right now that that's happening in Teaching is a predominantly humanistic field. But I will say and this is, you know, maybe not the most empathetic response, but I was talking to a teacher recently, just a couple of months ago, face to face, who said to me what is it I'm doing that AI can't replace? And I just looked at him and said, maybe you need to teach differently.

Becky Keene: 37:43

Like, if that's what you see, if you see that everything you're doing in your day as a teacher could be done by an automated tool that doesn't know your students, that doesn't build a relationship, that doesn't care about them as individuals, that doesn't see what they need, like, goodness, let's do some self-reflection, then, and maybe how you can be acting differently.

Becky Keene: 38:06

So that's not a call to action or, you know, it's not meant to be snarky, it's meant to be more that reflection on if I am spending most of my time as an educator asking kids to read pages out of textbooks or watch videos or even participate in an interactive simulation and then giving them a quiz on it that I can auto grade, then you're right, a lot of that can be outsourced to an AI tool.

Becky Keene: 38:32

And so let's kind of get back to the root of why many of us became educators to begin with, and that was because we love the joy of teaching, of being a part of kids' learning journey, of seeing that light bulb turn on, of making a difference in kids' lives. And maybe the education system that we have no control over, you and I as individuals, has taken us to a place where we feel trapped into this model of you know, disseminating information and collecting knowledge, checks, and so it's such a bigger issue than an individual teacher. But I think it can start with individual teachers kind of reclaiming that power over. Like these are things that I bring to a classroom, uniquely inhuman, that an AI tool can't replace. So it comes back to empowerment and building that optimism of what do you have to offer no one can replace.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 39:30

I love that, you know, and that's in your comment. I take that it really resonates with me because even along with my career, there's been times where I was like you know what things might be getting a little difficult or what's going on, what's happening. But once I turned the mirror on myself like you mentioned, that important part of self-reflection I was like oh, oh, okay, it's like I'm the one that needs to change things in order for my circumstances to change. So maybe, like you said, as educators too, just kind of reflecting on our current practice and what might be something that we can do to, like you mentioned, reclaim that joy and reclaim, you know, what we used to do and reclaim that optimism and just going forth and doing what's best for our students. And I know that that's the difficult part too many times because you've got directives that come from the top and they kind of move down. And teachers, we definitely love our autonomy, where we are the experts in the room, and as long as that we cover our teaks, it doesn't matter how we may be covering it.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 40:33

One of the best advice that I ever got since I came in from business into education not going through the traditional education route but I had one leader, one principal always said look, mr Mendoza, I really don't care how you teach the standard, as long as you stay within this box. You know, it's almost like a sandbox. You can play around and do whatever you like and teach it however you like, but as long as you cover what you need to cover, just throw anything at them. If you want to use the Chromebooks, if you want to use Screencastify, if you want to use anything, just go for it. You know, and of course it's going to look different than what everybody else is doing. No-transcript, they enjoyed the learning, they enjoyed the projects. I myself enjoyed what I was doing, and you know so, sometimes it's just also having a great leader and somebody that understands that and that can make a huge difference, for sure.

Becky Keene: 41:54

That's a good comment. You're fortunate to have great leaders.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 41:57

Excellent, all right. Well, becky, before we wrap up, I would love for you to for our new listeners, or maybe even current listeners that haven't connected with you yet. All right, can you please tell us how they might be able to connect with you on socials, and also how and where they may be able to find your book AI Optimism.

Becky Keene: 42:17

Yeah, so everything comes off of BeckyKeenecom If they want to go there. It's linked to all my socials. You can grab me on TikTok or Insta and see the TikTok walks daily. There's a book section of the website that has both my books there, including free study guide, a couple other downloadables, and I will also call out that book study groups at schools can book free virtual author talks with me. So that's something I offer as well and that's all through my website. So that's the best way to get me is Beckykeencom.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 42:49

Excellent, and we'll make sure we link all of that in the show notes as well. So, please, guys, I definitely recommend this is definitely a great resource for you to bring into your district and, like you just heard it from Becky, author talks, free virtual author talks for book studies at your district, and I think that this could be something that would be wonderful to bring in that team of. Again, I would suggest, like Kyler said, if you can have 50% or more of end users in there along with your leadership, I think that would be a great balance to get some great conversations going. But, becky, thank you so much for being on the show today, but before we wrap up, we always love to end the show with these last three questions, so hopefully you are ready for those. So, as we know, every superhero has a pain point or a weakness, and for Superman, kryptonite was his weakness. So I want to ask you in the current state of education, what would you say is your current edu kryptonite?

Becky Keene: 43:50

I hope I understand the question properly, but I would say the word magic to describe AI just kills me, and there's a couple of companies who do it. And I don't mean it like at a personal level. I just I really, really struggle with having educators feel like it's magic Because, anyway, not to get on the soap soapbox. But I feel like it relinquishes their control over what's happening and they have so much control through great prompting and when we relegate it to magic, it feels mysterious and like we don't have an influence on what happens, so that bothers me that is.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 44:30

that is a great answer and actually it really resembles an answer that I had from a previous guest who also said you know that if teachers were to understand that a lot of platforms offer just pre prompts or just you know that are already there, but if you actually show teachers the power of even if it's just chat, gpt and prompting, that you may even, I guess, get better results than what is there?

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 45:03

Yeah, so those are some of the things. So yeah, that is a wonderful, wonderful response and, like I said, it really lines up with many of the guests that I've had here. All right, so question number two Becky, I want to ask you if you could have a billboard with anything on it. What would it be and why?

Becky Keene: 45:21

It would say you can do anything but you can't do everything. And the why is because I have that sign hanging right here in my office and it's a great reminder every day of you know, just because it's possible doesn't mean we should. And being able to say no to things that don't fit my goals and my priorities. Also, understanding that if I want to go out and achieve something, I can, and I think everyone deserves that message.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 45:49

Excellent. That is a wonderful message. Thank you so much. Definitely very inspiring, and it couldn't have come at a better time for V2 as well. So that was right now. I just smiled and I was like, oh, that hit and it's wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that. And my last question for you, Becky, is if you could trade places with one person for a single day, it doesn't matter who may be who would that be and why?

Becky Keene: 46:13

So this, I really had to put some thought into this question, but I'm going to go with James Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand PM, because I I am not into politics at all. If anyone knows me personally, I'm like I'm the most neutral. I really like to stay out of it, but I do think that there's probably so much going on that we have no idea about Right Like we'll like blow up angry about something that happened in the world and we don't. We don't know 99 percent of the decisions that happened and why, and so and she's doing such an amazing job in a country that I've gotten to visit and love and I have great, great colleague connections there. So, yeah, I would want to trade places and see what it's like to be in that role and to be, you know, inundated with very high level decisions that have tons of context that nobody knows about, and feeling the pressure of that, and it would just be interesting and then I would enjoy getting out, love it.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 47:15

Love it, Love it. Great answer, Becky. Well, Becky, thank you so much. It has been an honor and a pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much for sharing so many wonderful gems, great insight, and you know just your book, your work, what you've been working on this whole time AI Optimism. So please, to all our audience members, connect with Becky, Make sure you get the book and thank you so much.

Becky Keene: 47:38

Becky, yeah, I should probably said that just yeah, we'll definitely just get.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 47:41

But hey, we go to your website. We'll be able to find it. So we'll be good to go. But, becky, thank you, I appreciate you being so gracious.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 47:48

It's been great to can be connected with you for so many years and see the wonderful work that you're doing and now now you know get to have you here on my show and get to have a wonderful conversation with you. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us and for all our audience members. Please make sure you visit our website at myedtechlife, where you can check out this amazing episode and the other 331 episodes now over a five year span. I promise you, guys, if you go back through our library or archives, you'll definitely find a little something just for you that you can sprinkle onto what you are already doing great. So please make sure you check that out. And I want to give a big shout out to our sponsors.

Dr. Fonz Mendoza: 48:26

Thank you so much Book Creator, thank you so much EduAid, and thank you so much Yellowdig for believing in us and believing in our mission of bringing these wonderful conversations into our education space to continue to grow and learn together. So thank you to you all. So you make sure that you check them out too as well. Their links are gonna be in the show notes as well. And, my friends, until next time, don't forget, stay techie.